How to calm your nerves when the pressure is on
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“When adversity strikes, that’s when you have to be the most calm. Take a step back, stay strong, stay grounded and press on.”
We’re doing our usual weekly meeting where we go around the room with the CEO present, each of us raising just a few points on what we’re intending to achieve this week or what issues we may encounter that we’re preparing for. It’s a very operational meeting attended by the 10 most senior members of the organisation. It’s not a meeting to show off, just one to share information so that we all know what’s going on or assist where we can.
As the roll call goes around the room, I’m about two seats away from the CIO, who is talking about the roll-out of the latest patch. So far, everything raised has been mundane and of low interest. But all of a sudden, that feeling of “Gosh, it’s my turn to speak soon” hits me. Butterflies start fluttering in my stomach (figure of speech), my heart starts pounding, and my palms start sweating. Why on Earth is this happening? This isn’t a high stakes meeting, it’s not a Board meeting, it’s not an Executive meeting. Just a good old fashioned operations briefing. As the CIO finishes and the CRO starts to speak, the feeling got worse. That little voice of self doubt inside me gets louder and louder. What if I have nothing of value to say? What if I mess it up? I feel a lump in my throat, it’s hard to breathe. I just want to run out of the room.
I don’t know what the psychological rationale is for the sudden build-up of fear inside me. However, I am mindful enough to know this negative feeling of self-doubt that rose up so suddenly is not real. There is no rationale to its existence and it must be remnants of some previous events (perhaps even from childhood) that is accidentally triggered by a word or a sentence.
In either case, my mind had some capacity left over to quickly figure out a way to stop the feeling of fear and reduce the fight or flight response. As I have blogged about earlier, you can never get rid of the feeling of fear, but you can take action to reduce its impact on you. Like the Vagas Breathing Exercise I’ve documented previously, there is another discrete breathing exercise you can take, which has been scientifically proven to work. Want more proof? It’s an exercise that is taught to Navy Seals to help them stay calm under fire or when they are on the edge of panic. If it works to calm the nerves when someone is shooting at you, it’s impact in the corporate environment must be equally effective.
BOXED BREATHING
Like the Vagas nerve breathing exercise, the action is simple and its effectiveness is increased with repetition. The advantage over the Vagas nerve breathing technique is that boxed breathing is more discrete but at the same time more intense. But importantly, it is much easier to remember. You don’t need to watch a Youtube video for guidance multiple times.
It works like this:
Sit up in your chair and plant you feet firmly on the floor.
Slowly inhale (in other words, breathe normally) for a count of four… 1. 2. 3. 4.
Hold your breath for a count of four… 1. 2. 3. 4.
Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of four… 1. 2. 3. 4.
Hold your breath for a count of four… 1. 2. 3. 4.
Then repeat… until you feel that inner voice quieten down.
How many times do you repeat? Well, I don’t think there is a formula. It depends on the person and the situation. For me, sometimes I can feel more calm after just one iteration, other times, I’ve had to do it five or six times. The trick is to do it as early as possible to give yourself as much time as possible.
WHY DOES IT WORK
My personal theory is that by making you count to four, and placing the focus on your breathing, your mind is now distracted from what it was doing before. Instead of focusing on the negative self talk based on something that happened to you in the past, it’s now dragged away from that to focus on your breathing and counting. Despite what people say, multi-tasking is not something the brain can do. It merely flips between multiple tasks.
However, breathing is a life or death situation. So the mind automatically gives it its full attention. By counting to four (very similar to Mel Robbins technique of counting to get you to snap yourself out of your mind) and trying to breathe in a particular way, the mind is forced to snap out of its negative self talk and focus on what it thinks is a life or death situation.
By repeating a few times, the negative self talk dissipates and you start to calm down a bit to focus on the actual task at hand. Speaking slowly, articulately, and loudly…. without having to worry about people seeing the sweat on your brow, the fact that you’re trying to control your nerves, or just downright sounding shaky when you speak.
If you want more detailed instructions, the video below from actual Navy Seals will give you guidance on Boxed Breathing and a few other techniques. The more techniques you have, the more tools are available for you to use that best fit the situation. Enjoy.
Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash
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